Development of the workplace inclusion questionnaire (WIQ)

Abstract

Aims: To develop a questionnaire to examine attitudes among employees and managers to include people with various health problems into their work group, and to test the questionnaire in one relevant population within the labour market. Methods: A questionnaire was developed through a process involving discussions in a scientific forum and pilot testing with group discussions. The final questionnaire, which was tested in a survey study of managers and employees in 33 Norwegian kindergartens ( N=485), contained 10 short case stories followed by questions concerning workplace inclusion. The case stories described individuals with musculoskeletal and mental disorders, as well as individuals with potentially stigmatising behavioural history and lifestyle, and control cases. Risk ratios with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to compare the case stories. Cases with high risk ratios had an increased risk of not being included compared to a control case. Results: Attitudes for workplace inclusion varied between the different case stories. Cases portraying mental illness had the highest risk ratios, indicating that employees and managers are less likely to include people with mental illness than people with musculoskeletal illness. Furthermore, unspecific or chronic illness had higher risk ratios than specific and acute illness. The most important barriers also varied between case stories. Conclusions: The workplace inclusion questionnaire fulfills the need for a quantitative measure of attitudes to include individuals with various health problems into the workplace. Comparison of risk ratios showed clear differences between case stories, indicating that the workplace inclusion questionnaire is a valuable tool to measure the variance in workplace inclusion.

Bridging Differences: The Role of Socialization and Inclusivity in Fostering Employee Performance in Healthcare Sector

“…Employee Performance (EP) scale developed by Koopmans et al (2013)was used in this study with 14 items. Inclusive workplace (IWP) was measured using the scale of (Sveinsdottir et al, 2022) with six items of three scale. P-O fit scale developed by Cable and DeRue (2002).…”

How to measure mental illness stigma at work: development and validation of the workplace mental illness stigma scale

“…An instrument to assess attitudes toward individuals with disabilities in the workplace was developed by Popovich et al ( 60 ) consisting of scales regarding beliefs about what constitutes a disability, affective reactions to working with individuals with disabilities and opinions about the reasonableness of common workplace accommodations. The Workplace Inclusion Questionnaire (WIQ) specifically addresses attitudes regarding workplace inclusion which vary across different case stories including descriptions of individuals with musculoskeletal and mental disorders ( 61 ). Taken together, most stigma measures focus on a general stigmatization context, underrepresent specific mental disorders and lack of the affective component underlying the attitudinal framework.…”

Workplace Inclusion of Potentially Marginalized Groups: A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial of the atWork Intervention

“…As elaborated above, workplace inclusion is a comprehensive term and can be operationalized in different ways. In this paper, workplace inclusion is operationalized as employees' attitudes about how different individuals are considered to fit into their work group (Sveinsdottir et al, 2021). Employees' assessment of how well an individual fits into their work group implies their behavioral intentions and may influence their willingness to include them and affect inclusion practices.…”

“…The main aim of the present study was to investigate if the MAW and the OAW interventions contributed to increased workplace inclusion, to compare the possible effect of the MAW and the OAW on workplace inclusion, and to explore if reported barriers related to inclusion affected the likelihood for positive change in workplace inclusion. The hypothesis was that the MAW intervention, because it exposed the employees to knowledge (e.g., prevalence and medical information) about a broader specter of health complaints and had more focus on the importance of work participation for health than the OAW intervention, would lead to more favorable attitudes regarding workplace inclusion across the different case descriptions in the Workplace Inclusion Questionnaire (Sveinsdottir et al, 2021).…”